Keith Baker & Andy Looney

All posts filed under “GenCon”

This week the word is Gen Con, which the nerds spend a lot of time discussing. But first Keith talks about being in Maine, and his distaste for lobster. They talk about the year 2020, seeing multiple people wearing a lab coat and carrying a watermelon, and zany stunts they used to do at sci-fi conventions before they each started a game company. Keith talks about his new project with the Adventure Zone, then they speculate more about the upcoming Picard series. Andy asks Keith to compare the gore factors on Stranger Things vs. The Boys, since Andy is very adverse to graphic depictions. Then Keith talks about the start of Season 3 of Legion, and Andy mentions a theory about Star Wars Episode 9 that’s been going around. After lowering the spoiler curtain, the discuss season 3 of Stranger Things.

This week the word is crud, since Keith still has the dreaded con crud. Keith talks about some of the things he noticed at the American Library Association conference. Andy talks about how much he enjoyed the movie Yesterday, and Keith discusses the new series called The Rook. Andy also talks about Brooklyn Nine Nine, which he’s now all caught up on, and Keith talks about seeing a Lonely Island concert. Other topics include Jerry Seinfeld’s original appearance on SNL, summer movies they haven’t seen yet, their favorite units of US currency, and what animal they would choose to be turned into (other than a lobster). Lastly, Andy talks about all the new games Looney Labs will be releasing in August.

This week the word is Libraries. The nerds reminiscence about all the time they spent as youths going to the library, and how times have changed, even including the way we consume books. Keith describes a unique book experience called S and talks about new technology for reading comics. Andy tells the story of meeting Greykell in a library as a youth, and describes how that library building has just been torn down but the cool entrance artifact is being saved. Keith tells the story of how fake accents adopted during a model UN event led to an embarrassing incident in the library. Andy talks about getting ready to go to Origins, and Keith hints at the work he can’t talk about. Andy talks about watching old episodes of Star Trek Voyager again, working from a list of good and bad episodes he created by combining several notable episode lists. He also talks about getting caught up on Brooklyn Nine Nine. They conclude by discussing the word churlish.

This week the nerds take on the topic of time, and stories about characters who can stop time, slow time down, or, of course, travel through time. Specific subjects include Doctor Who, Hiro from Heroes, the Flash, Quicksilver from the X-men, Voyagers, the First Men in the Moon, Manifest, Seven Days, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, The Man in the High Castle, Fringe, Sliders, and others. At the end they lower the spoiler curtain to discuss the most recent episodes of The Good Place and Manifest.

First Keith reports on a couple of D&D games in the middle of playing, which included a scene with a fancy dance involving daggers. Then Keith talks about several podcasts he listened to recently, and some of the issues discussed thereon. The guys then talk more about their experiences at GenCon. Andy talks about awarding Homeworlds medal #17, and describes new ideas he’s been playing around with for a variation of the game that has no combat and a different end condition. Keith talks about Potion Explosion, Root, Arkham Horror, and the how difficult it is to walk the enormous exhibit hall when you’re busy running a booth. They talk about the meaning of name Delos, and Andy talks about an RPG called TimeWatch. Keith talks about media he’s been catching up on, including Cloak & Dagger, Castle Rock, and Making It. Kristin interrupts to bring Andy the first samples from the factory of Fairy Tale Fluxx and Mary Engelbreit Loonacy, and talks about the progress he’s been making on the Star Trek version of Chrononauts he’s currently designing.

This episode was recorded during Gen Con at a Giordano’s pizza place. First Andy shows Keith his prototype-in-progress for a new version of Chrononauts based on the historical events of the Star Trek universe. Keith talks about playing backgammon at a family reunion, then they get into discussing what they’ve been doing at Gen Con. Keith talks about why he had two booths, and describes the four Writer’s Symposium panels he was on. This leads to a discussion of their favorite, and least favorite, alien races. Andy talks about running his newest Parsely game, Ducks on a Plane, then they play a couple of rounds of Andy’s newest social deduction game, Are You a Robot?. Lastly, the pizza arrives, and the guys have to stop talking so they can eat!

First the guys talk about Gen Con and other travel plans. Then Keith talks about The Wayfinder’s Guide to Eberron, which he’s been working on for months and which was just released. Andy reports on his progress with the new game he’s developing called Are You A Robot, then tells of moving his aging father into the next level of care at his retirement home. Andy talks about installing a TV screen showing a looping video of a fireplace inside an old wood stove, and Keith talks about seeing a Rick & Morty episode he’d missed the first time around. Moving onto media, topics include Timeless, Travelers, Cloak & Dagger, and Ant Man. Things get spoilery when Andy starts talking at length about Future World, the 1976 sequel to Westworld and end with their views on the first season of The Crossing.

First Keith reports on his recent trip to his hometown of Ithaca NY. Andy mentions that this year’s Burning Man theme is “I, Robot” and Keith tells Andy about a new game being designed by friends of his called Inhuman Conditions, which is about trying to determine if your opponent is a robot or a human. Then they talk about tattoos people have gotten featuring images from their games. Andy tells Keith about a memorable hand of Action Cats! Then they spend more than half the show talking about Star Trek: Discovery, which Keith has finally gotten caught up on.

First Andy goes through a few items of old business, mostly media related, including the new movie Loving Vincent and the older movies Sound of Her Voice, and What We Do in the Shadows. Andy mentions his 3-phase breakdown of working on a project, and they each talk about the books they have written. Then they talk about work, and how great it is to be working with the printer Delano, who printed both Doctor Who Fluxx and Action Cats! But they spend most of the episode discussing Thor: Ragnarok in great detail.

First Keith talks about the new Thor movie, which Andy hasn’t seen yet, then they continue to discuss The Orville and Star Trek Discovery. Topics include the classic Trek trope of the character who’s an outsider who wishes to be an insider, Harry Mudd version 2.0, and the expectations of new stories set in an existing universe. This leads to a discussion of Minority Report, Tomorrowland, and utopias vs dystopias in general. Then Keith talks about the games he ran and played at AmberCon, including a new Phoenix adventure, and Andy talks about playing games at GameHoleCon. Lastly they discuss season 2 of Stranger Things.